Neither Sweet Nor Sour: Never Again
by EnigmaSyndrome
Summary: Humans can only take so much stress until they break. But breaking is sometimes what one needs to do to rebuild. hat happens when Naota faces the one thing that can destroy all that he has rebuilt returns? Rated M for coarse language and violence


Neither Sweet Nor Sour: Never Again

Naota tossed and turned in his sleep, wincing as the thoughts of that haunting incident, and the equally haunting girl flooded his mind. "N-no… No… Take me with you, please… Please… HARUKO!" As he yelled her name, he sat straight up in bed, his father coming in seconds later. "The dream again?" He nodded and stared at his bed, his face one of solemn abandonment; It had been 5 years now since he last seen the neon-haired vixen, and it ate at him since then; he was barely passing his classes, his friends saw the changes, Ninamori included, his hair thinning out from stress and his eyes starting to get bags that turned more and more vivid each day. Naota was sick of the torment, the girl eating away at what little sanity he had left, though he hadn't heard her voice is what felt to him like eons. Suddenly, as if possessed by some feral demon, he reached under his bed for the guitar, the one link he had left with Haruko, and dragged it outside, a concerned Kamon following him. "Naota, what are you doing?" As he stepped outside, he grabbed the guitar by the nexk and slammed the body into the asphalt of the road, the casing shattering to shards with one impact. Kamon, who rarely ever saw his son frustrated enough to curse, in fact having not seen him this incensed since Mamimi's departure, was surprised to see his son hunched over in rage, his teeth bared. "That's IT! I can't take this shit anymore! She's dead to me! If she doesn't care for me, then FUCK! HER! She's put me through enough bullshit, and I'm FED THE FUCK UP with it!" He stood there, taking in deep, unsteady inhalations as he looked at the broken guitar before him. He then turned around and stormed off to bed, his teeth bared the whole time.

The sun shone through the window of an apartment in the western United States. That night was 10 years gone, and Naota's life has gone nothing but uphill from that point: He graduated valedictorian in high school, earned a degree in teaching in Japan, and moved to the United States, where he taught high-school freshman and sophmore anatomy, as well as ran the Kendo Club. As far as he was concerned, Haruko, Mamimi, Canti, they were the three components of a horrible occurrence. Much as a fire needed fuel, air, and a heat source to start, so to did Noata's horrors end once he shut out Haruko from his mind.

That day went very normally. He had finally reached the last part of that day: the sparring session with the kendo club. He stepped into the gym, where his students awaited, bowing as he entered. "Good afternoon, my students. You may start today with-" He stopped as he saw something that made a knot in his stomach when he saw it: A curvaceous temptress stepping off of a yellow vespa, Rickenbacker slung to her back. As she took off her helmet, pink hair dropped to her shoulders as she opened her eyes, yellow-green orbs peering in his direction. He quickly gathered his wits and continued where he left off. "Start with sparring. I have business to attend to." He stepped outside, grabbing a bokken before doing so. She grinned at him in her usual way and sauntered over. "Well, well, if it isn't Tak-kun, all grown up." His face remained emotionless, seeing the woman less as a memory and more as a threat, a mockery to what he has done for himself since that night in the streets outside his father's bakery. "There's no Tak-kun here. You must be mistaken, so I'll have to ask you to leave the campus before I call security." She chuckled and gently used her fingers to caress his jaw line. "Too cute, Tak-kun is all business, even to this day. But you know just as well as I do that a security force isn't enough to keep me down." He sighed, hoping it wouldn't come to this, but slowly took his stance in front of her, bokken pointed out. "I figured as much, which is why I brought this out." She laughed and pulled out the Rickenbacker, grinning wildly. "You think you can take me down with that stick? You've gotta b-" She was interjected by a swipe of bamboo to her face, Naota's face showing a face of pute bitterness and spite, hatred that had been culminating for 15 years. "You ruined my life. The night I left your memories behind, I made my life much better, and I REFUSE TO GO BACK!" A student had stepped outside to see what the commotion was, and Naota looked back at him. "In my office, there's a katana. Bring it to me, now!" He barked, the student leaving immediately as Naota retook his stance. "It's time I burned this bridge permanently." She cupped a hand around the new welt on her cheek and gritted her teeth, tightening her grip on the neck of the bass. "I see there's no use talking to you anymore, Tak-kun." His eyes shot open and he charged forward, unleashing the rage and lament of 15 years on her, barking at her with each swing, unblocked or not, of his bokken. "MY! NAME! IS! NOT! TAK-KUN! ANYMORE!" The two fought as well as they could, Haruko receiving the majority of the strikes that Naota dealt her, her body pocked with welts by the time the student came back wit the katana. Naota quickly unsheathed the blade, Haruko suddenly feeling a surge of fear go through her: he was serious. He had the intent on ending her, then and there. As she made another swing at him, Naota swiftly lopped the body of the instrument off, followed by her hands. As she shrieked in agony, dropping to her knees, he slid the blade under her neck, the edge pushing against it. "Any last words before I show you eternity?" She scowled at him, the scowl slowly disappearing as she spoke. "I'm sorry, Atomsk-" As she spoke the name of her object of lust, her sentence was ended, eternally, by his blade, her throat gushing blood as her life slowly faded. He then flicked the blood from his blade and re-sheathed the katana, bowing down before her for a prayer for the soul of the twisted alien before turning back towards his student. "Speak of what you saw to nobody; as is she, so is the reason behind her death lost to the past." The student nodded, still shaken up by the sight, and followed Naota back into the gym, the incident never being spoken of again, and never becoming relevant.


End file.
